The processes of branding and brand management have progressively transitioned from
corporate offices to online social spaces in recent years as brands have become
increasingly situated within social media. To date however there has been limited
academic scrutiny directed towards understanding the impact of social media on brands
and brand management. Taking the view that social media represent a new institutional
environment for brands and brand management, this research draws from institutional
theory in exploring brand management in social media environments. Specifically the
study explores how social media impacts upon brand management, and how brand
management responds to the institutional demands of social media.
Following a case study approach, five cases were studied with data collected from semi-structured
interviews, longitudinal observations of social media brand fan pages and
consultation of secondary sources.
The findings show that social media can serve as a medium capable of framing the
brands situated therein as worthy of attention, and moreover as legitimate actors.
However the transparency of social media renders brands highly visible, creating
ambivalence for brand managers and serving to constrain the range of legitimate actions
that can be employed by organisations ill the management of their brands. However,
institutional demands are not entirely deterministic and the findings draw attention to
the roles of internal organisational processes and individual actors in influencing brand
management activities in social media. The findings demonstrated that organisations do
not necessarily passively comply with the demands of social media, but rather develop
subtle forms of maintaining control over their brands through attempts at influencing
brand-related user-generated content and the behaviours of social media users.